Dairy products form the major part of functional foods. To understand their success it is important to know that milk is a natural and highly nutritive part of a balanced daily diet. Designing and developing functionality in dairy-based products simply means modifying and/or enriching the healthy nature of the original base. This chapter is a brief introduction to the composition of milk and the nature of fermented milk products. It also gives a few definitions and introduces some of the functional dairy products on the market. The purpose of this chapter is not to evaluate the quality and depth of the science behind each product: some of.
